What to Expect as a Judge

Application

Before applying to judge, please make sure you understand the process so you know what to expect and what your responsibilities will be. Read our  Terms & Conditions of Judge Participation before completing your application.

We encourage you to select the top 3 categories you feel most qualified and most interested in judging. 

We will try our very best to assign you products in your top category choices. Note that some categories receive over 100 judge applications so we cannot always assign all qualified/ approved judges products. Priority is given to past judges with outstanding feedback, and to those who apply first.

Confirmation & Application Review

Once you submit your application to become a judge, you will receive a confirmation email that we are in the process of reviewing your application, and we will notify you as soon as your application has been reviewed, usually within a few days. If you don’t receive this email, please check your spam filters and whitelist jbaranowski@siia.net.

Product Assignments

Product assignments will be sent to judges the week of February 15, 2021. Please review your product assignments in the judge dashboard as soon as you receive them and let the Awards Director know of any conflicts of interest, or if you can no longer participate.

Product Evaluations

As a judge, you will be expected to evaluate up to five (5) products in any one of your preferred categories. All demonstrations are conducted virtually and take approximately 45-minutes to 1-hour per product demo. Expect to spend about 6 hours of time judging between reviewing demos and completing the evaluation. 

What is the Process?

• Nominees will reach out beginning February 15, 2021 to schedule a live demo time with you, but you may also reach out directly to the nominees to schedule.
• Review the judging criteria and the products as soon as you receive your assignments.
• Demos are to be scheduled by March 19. Demos may be conducted independently or with both judges. Notify the Awards Director immediately if you do not hear from your assigned nominees within a week. 
• Please remember that you are comparing each product to the criteria provided, and not against each other.
• We recommend submitting your scores immediately after reviewing each individual product when the evaluation information is fresh rather than waiting until the end of the review period. Scoring usually takes about 10-20 minutes per product.
• You may return to the judge dashboard to revise your scores at any point up to Friday, April 16, 2021.